Crab Nebula
FYNebulas
FYNebulas
Crab Nebula
After reading over my post “Crab Nebula”, I found out more information on GRIN (greatest images in NASA), also easier to understand… so:
In the year 1054 A.D., Chinese astronomers were startled by the appearance of a new star, so bright that it was visible in broad daylight for several weeks. Today, the Crab Nebula is visible at the site of the “Guest Star.” Located about 6,500 light-years from Earth, the Crab Nebula is the remnant of a star that began its life with about 10 times the mass of our own Sun. Its life ended on July 4, 1054 when it exploded as a supernova. In this image, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has zoomed in on the center of the Crab to reveal its structure with unprecedented detail. The Crab Nebula data were obtained by Hubble’s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in 1995. Images taken with five different color filters have been combined to construct this new false-color picture. Resembling an abstract painting by Jackson Pollack, the image shows ragged shards of gas that are expanding away from the explosion site at over 3 million miles per hour. The core of the star has survived the explosion as a pulsar, visible in the Hubble image as the lower of the two moderately bright stars to the upper left of center. The pulsar is a neutron star that spins on its axis 30 times a second. It heats its surroundings, creating the ghostly diffuse bluish-green glowing gas cloud in its vicinity, including a blue arc just to its right. The colorful network of filaments is the material from the outer layers of the star that was expelled during the explosion. The picture is somewhat deceptive in that the filaments appear to be close to the pulsar. In reality, the yellowish green filaments toward the bottom of the image are closer to us, and approaching at some 300 miles per second. The orange and pink filaments toward the top of the picture include material behind the pulsar, rushing away from us at similar speeds. The various colors in the picture arise from different chemical elements in the expanding gas, including hydrogen (orange), nitrogen (red), sulfur (pink), and oxygen (green). The shades of color represent variations in the temperature and density of the gas, as well as changes in the elemental composition. Kris Davidson (U. Minn.) led the research team of William P. Blair (JHU), Robert A. Fesen (Dartmouth), Alan Uomoto (JHU), Gordon M. MacAlpine (U. Mich.), and Richard B.C. Henry (U. Okla.) in the collection of the HST data. The Hubble Heritage Team created the color image from black and white data processed by Dr. Blair.
Picture taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, best/sharpest picture we have so far. Perhaps the JWST will give us a better view? I guess we’ll have to wait until 2015!
The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus. The nebula was observed by John…
Crab Nebula
Yep, that’s right.. The Crab Nebula has astonished Astronomers, I’ll get back to that but first you should know some background info:
The Crab Nebula is very popular, has been for a very long time.. It’s one of the most studied objects in the cosmos.
The Crab Nebula is the wreckage of an…
NASA satellites find high-energy surprises in ‘constant’ Crab Nebula
New results from NASA space observatories have revealed something surprising about the Crab Nebula: This famous supernova remnant — long considered a veritable “old faithful” of X-ray sources for the constancy of it energy output — appears to be dimming over time.
In this image, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals the complex X-ray-emitting central region of the Crab Nebula. This image is 9.8 light-years across. Chandra observations were not compatible with the study of the nebula’s X-ray variations.
• Image Credit: NASA • Full story at http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov • Watch video
Crab Nebula
(via fuckyeahtheuniverse)
(via brosephstalin)
Wow. This really puts things into perspective.
Really cool.
I love the presentation of all this. it’s just so much to take in all in one sitting. it completely blows my mind, even though it includes a bunch of stuff I already knew but this like… expands it, and shows it. So well. Wow.
A composite image of the Crab Nebula, with Chandra x-ray data in blue, Hubble visible light in red and yellow, and Spitzer infrared data in purple.
(via Spitzer)
